Herpes simplex virus type 2 infection does not influence viral dynamics during early HIV-1 infection

We sought to compare baseline and longitudinal plasma HIV-1 loads between herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2)-seropositive and -seronegative individuals who are enrolled in a primary HIV-1 infection cohort in San Diego, California.

The study was a retrospective cohort analysis.

We categorized antiretroviral-naive subjects on the basis of HSV-2 serostatus at baseline using an HSV-2 enzyme immunoassay. Low positive results (1.1-3.5) were confirmed by Western blotting. We compared baseline HIV-1 loads of the 2 groups using a linear model. To detect differences in HIV-1 dynamics, we analyzed longitudinal viral loads using a flexible semiparametric model, controlling for the time to antiretroviral therapy and stratifying by HIV-1 infection stage at entry.

We studied 294 adult men. Ninety percent reported sex with men as their main HIV-1 risk factor. The seroprevalence of HSV-2 was 41.5%. The HSV-2-seropositive and -seronegative groups had similar baseline HIV-1 loads during acute infection (5.52 vs. 5.72 log(10) copies/mL; P=.39) and early infection (4.57 vs. 4.67 log(10) copies/mL; P=.5). Longitudinally, the difference in HIV-1 loads between HSV-2-seropositive and -seronegative men remained close to 0 during the first year of infection.

HSV-2 serostatus has minimal influence on the dynamics of HIV-1 during acute and early HIV-1 infection.